


One More Night

by Camlann



Series: Latticework Souls [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1701176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camlann/pseuds/Camlann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He watches her sleep. It helps, sometimes. And others? Well. Not so much...</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Night

He watches her sleep.

It’s a habit that formed not long after he held her in a cage, lifted her up and caught her to him. He knows that he cannot leave this place, not yet. The cameras constantly turned on him, the hard gaze of a woman he’s never met (but once was told to kill. Why hadn’t he? He was the bullet in the gun, why had he failed this once? And then again. Twice. Two level sixes. He should have been a dead man. Instead, they’d just wiped him), this is his life.

This was his sentence for what he had done and James bows his head in the dark, the tinted glass in the Hulk tank only playing at privacy. He had none and so, in turn, neither did she.

But she stayed, curled up on a bed barely big enough for the two of them and tucked away into his chest. Her hand rests on his heartbeat and he knows her name now. Can taste it on his tongue when he says it, like something sweet and soft and yet. Too spicy for him.

Too much, too soon.

Still, he doesn’t send her away. He tried, once. And she just marched out of the tank, went up to the Director, and demanded a blanket or two. Books. Anything to keep away the boredom.

She’d gotten them. Strangely enough.

She must be well liked.

He already knows she is and James places a metal hand hesitantly over hers. Always hesitant when she can’t see him. Sliding over a slim wrist, just barely avoiding the twirling color of a mark that sit across her palm in silent testament to why she’s there. He avoids it avidly, tracing up her arm and resting on her neck.

James Barnes never touches the mark there, though he once kissed it when Russian flowed from his lips and he couldn’t remember the afternoon, other than when he came to and Darcy was sitting outside the door of the tank, back to the glass and researching something for Jane.

He doesn’t touch that mark. It makes him more than a little ill when he sees it so starkly against her pale skin.

Darcy Lewis deserved better, he decides. But he can’t really escape from her gaze or her side.

He doesn’t really want to, after everything he’s been through.

The problem remains that he can remember that night. He can. It’s come back to him, that time. A few others too, when he’d stood over someone begging for their life. Someone unconscious in their bed. A rainy night where he just needed to skim a tire to make it look like an accident. A moment where the call is about to be made for a mother of two, wishing on stars for a man that would come home 70 years later. The call comes in to move out, she’s not a threat anyways.

He recognizes the face. He knows what he’s done. He has a lot to atone for. And yet…

Fingers tighten around Darcy’s back and James thinks idly he can break her neck and no one would be any the wiser until morning when she didn’t move. Maybe even afternoon, she’s a late sleeper at times and they wouldn’t know. They’d never know.

He sees red and Darcy wakes with a yap at the mark of teeth on her neck.

“Hey-ho there,” is a mumbled response and James glares at her, metal hand bringing a sleepy gaze up to his own. “What the…”

“Get. Out.”

Darcy’s green-blue eyes widen and good. He’s scared her. She lives in technicolor. He lives in black and white. He’s a part of her world, but she can’t be a part of his.

He’s the stain on her skin. And he can’t be anything but shuttered from her. Away.

“Why?”

It’s so… innocent. Comparatively. What he’s used to is the exact opposite. Don’t question. Do. There were orders and there was ice and there was no in between until recently. And it’s confusing and **hard** and James wants something just in his reach.

Just now in his arms. But he can’t have her.

He can’t even get out of this tank.

“Does there have to be a reason?”

“You’re not talking in Russian. That’s reason enough, right?”

“No.”

“Look Mister.” And he knows that look. He can see her stubborn streak, the way she bolsters herself up to fight him. He’s stronger than her. He should be able to win. “You know that I’m not just gonna up and leave. You asshole, you are six ways to Sunday messed up but whatcha gonna do about it? This. This is what we do. So. Ya know. Go back to sleep.”

“Darcy.”

“No! Just.” There’s a sigh and he thinks he’s won. At least, for a second. “Let me stay. Please. You being here is you, I don’t know, doing good. Well. This is me coping.”

James goes quiet, watching her closely. She’s scared of him, he can tell from the way her heart beats faster when he gets like this. Sullen and moody. But she’s also already drifting back to sleep, not going to be able to remember most of this in the morning.

Like always. Because he asks every other night. But tonight…

Tonight, she gets one more night like she asks and fingers take up tracing the triangles that sit up and down her spine. It’s relaxing and keeps him from going stir crazy when he can’t sleep. And she gets to stay, tucked to his chest and branded hand curled in his t-shirt over his heart.

But just for tonight.


End file.
